The Saturday (March 27) night benefit at packed Generations Hall for the New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic featured a huge fundraising auction, music by Little Queenie and John Boutte, and Clarke Peters (of the “The Wire” and now HBO’s “Treme”) performing with Mardi Gras Indians, video below.

STEVEN FORSTER / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE
HBO's Treme presented My Darlin' New Orleans celebrity auction to benefit The New Orleans Musicians' Clinic at Generations Hall Saturday March 27, 2010. Wendell Pierce.
“Treme,” which sponsored the event, has been in production in New Orleans since November. A new 10-episode drama, it debuts April 11. Watch video interviews from the red carpet here.

The show’s partnership with the Musicians’ Clinic has a special resonance for Davis Rogan, a New Orleans musician and DJ who’s acting as a consultant and writer for the show, and on whom a lead character (played by Steve Zahn) is partly based.

“This is actually a really awesome moment for me, because I’ve gone from being a beneficiary to a benefactor in the course of working on the show,” he said. “The clinic’s taken very good care of me and so many of my friends. It’s just a great organization. I’m happy to be crossing over.”

Wendell Pierce, who portrays a trombone player on the series, said the partnership between the show and the clinic, which provides health care and other services for local musicians, is a natural alliance.

“Musicians are the heartbeat of New Orleans,” Pierce said. “We have to take care of them. We actually don’t do a good job of it sometimes. The Musicians’ Clinic is a lifeline to so many people.

“You couldn’t do a show like ‘Treme’ here in New Orleans without identifying a group to create a charity partnership with, and we couldn’t pick a better group than the New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic.”